


Crema Verse Prompt Fill #5

by twobirdsonesong



Series: Crema Verse [6]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Brothers, Crema verse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Prompt Fill, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 20:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>oldcoyote asked: Cooper finds out that his new girlfriend is playing him for a fool and Kurt and Blaine try their best to comfort him.  With snacks.  And cuddles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crema Verse Prompt Fill #5

“Hey, I just had this great idea for a dress for Samantha’s upcoming birthday soiree,” Kurt says as he walks into Carrie’s office.  “I was in the elevator and I saw this girl – I think she’s an intern down in marketing – and she was wearing this,” he pauses mid sentence.  “What is that?” Kurt asks, his voice suddenly gone hard, and he gestures at the object in question.

That day’s issue of The New York Post is on Carrie’s desk and Cooper’s face, caught in an awkward, unflattering expression, is plastered on the cover with a damning headline big and bold above it:

**_FOR MONEY NOT LOVE: CLUELESS COOPER’S EMBARRASSING ROMANCE_ **

“You should read it,” Carrie says.  She’s sitting behind her desk, a cup of coffee cradled in one hand, and there is unnerving sympathy and concern in her eyes.  This is not what Kurt was expecting when he came back from lunch.

Kurt doesn’t want to read it – he doesn’t want know – but he has to.  Cooper is in and out of the tabloids all the time, and nothing written about him has ever been true.  Well, except the thing about the beagle and the banana.  That one was totally true, if completely misunderstood.  But the fact that this article seems to be about Cooper’s girlfriend piques Kurt’s interest, and his worry.

Nina is an up-and-coming actress, and even though Kurt hasn’t seen anything she’s been in (so far just a couple of B-movies and three seasons on a CW show), he trusts Cooper’s judgment in this.  It hasn’t been that long at all, but it’s Kurt’s experience that the Anderson men move fast when they know, or think, that it’s right.  And Cooper hasn’t been shy at all about his affection for this girl. 

Kurt picks up the paper and flips it open to the article.  His jaw drops lower and lower with every piece of information.  It reads like a Greatest Hits compilation of regrettable Hollywood relationships: how Nina was overheard boasting to a friend about how she’s just using Cooper to boost her career and she’s fully planning on dumping him as soon as she’s famous; how she even planned on getting Cooper to marry her, because, rich as Cooper is, he’s the kind of naïve, sentimental fool who doesn’t believe in pre-nups.  There are a couple of grainy photos accompanying the article: Cooper and Nina out to lunch; Nina getting into a car with a man who is not Cooper; Cooper looking upset about something unseen in the frame.

Kurt bristles and clenches his jaw when he reads that Cooper is described as a  _naive, sentimental fool,_ especially by the person who is supposed to be in love with him.  He throws the paper down in disgust.  “That is such bullshit.  It’s all lies and slander.”

“You should call Blaine,” Carrie says, and she takes a slow drink of her coffee.

“Why?  This is ridiculous.  You don’t think any of this is true, do you?”

Kurt has been right in the middle of the fashion industry for a few years now - more than long enough to know that less than half of what’s said about people is ever even remotely true.

“I think Page 6 isn’t The Star.  And I’ve heard… _interesting_  things about this Nina.  I wasn’t going to say anything to you about it, but she apparently already has something of a reputation as a “do anything” kind of girl, if you get my meaning.  And John swears he’s seen her at the home of some big Napa Valley wine producer, although he didn’t name names.  I hate to say it, but I think your fiancé’s brother may have landed himself a sour grape.”

Kurt wrinkles his nose.  “That’s just- there’s no way Cooper would get tangled up in something like that.”  But when Kurt thinks about it, he starts to worry.  Cooper’s heart is three sizes too big, even if he tries to hide it from the public behind his unfairly good looks, roguish charm, and considerable talent.  Cooper is the kind of man who thinks the best of someone, even at his own expense.  He hopes Cooper hasn’t somehow gotten himself into the kind of mess that can’t be fixed.

Taking the paper, Kurt walks into his own office, adjacent to Carrie’s, and calls Blaine.  He needs to know if Blaine is as worried about Cooper as he is; he has to know if he’s overreacting.

“Hey you, what’s up?” Blaine answers, and Kurt can hear muffled voices in the background.  He must have caught Blaine during rehearsals for the off-Broadway show he’d been hired to write the score for.  It’s a huge step for his career, and Kurt couldn’t be prouder of him.

“Have you heard from your brother recently?”

“Not since he called to ask if I thought starring in a remake of  _Die Hard_ was a good idea or not.  He just wants to wear a dirty tank top and say  _yippie ki-yay motherfucker_.  As if he doesn’t do that enough already.  Why?” 

Kurt bites his lip, debating if he really wants to bring it up, but he tells Blaine all about the New York Post headline.  He can hear Blaine  _hmmming_ across the line, and he can tell that Blaine isn’t nearly as concerned as he is.

“I mean, it sounds terrible, but Coop’s in the papers and the news all the time, and nothing is ever true.  Except the beagle incident, but that was just a misunderstanding.  Why would this nonsense be any different?  I haven’t met Nina yet, but he seems totally ass-over-teakettle about her.”

“So you think he’s ok?”  Kurt curls the Post into a tube and then crunches it in his fist.  “He’s probably seen this by now.  I can’t imagine how he’s feeling - knowing that people are saying this about his relationship.”

“I think he’ll talk to me if he needs me; he always does.”

“All right, ok.  Maybe I’m overreacting.”  Kurt drops the paper onto his desk and rubs his face with his free hand.

“I love that you care so much about him,” Blaine murmurs, and the affection deepens his voice.

“Hey, he’s going to be my brother too.  Of course I care,” Kurt protests with a little laugh, and he can feel Blaine’s sweet, adoring smile through the phone.

“I love you.”

“Love you too.  Get back to work.”

“Yes, dear.”

Kurt hangs up, leans back in his chair, and looks thoughtfully out of the floor-to-ceiling window where New York City stretches out grey and bustling beneath him.  He thinks about calling Cooper, just to see how he’s doing, but he’s out in LA and if he hasn’t seen the article yet, then Kurt doesn’t want to bring it up to him.  And if he has seen it, maybe it’s not so bad?  Maybe he and Nina are sharing a good laugh and a couple of kisses over it?  Kurt tosses the paper into the recycling, determined to ignore it for the rest of the day.

Maybe Cooper will call later that night and they’ll all tear the article apart good-naturedly and then forget about it completely.

It doesn’t happen like that.

***

When Kurt gets home that evening, there is a jacket on the rack that isn’t his or Blaine’s and a pair of shoes by the door neither of them could afford.  A fedora is on the floor as though someone tried to toss it on the coat rack and missed.  Cooper is sitting on the floor in the living room, leaning back against the couch, the very couch that he bought for Kurt and Blaine.  His knees are drawn up and his forearms are resting on them, hands dangling limply.   His head is down and his dark hair is falling in front of his face.  Kurt flashes, suddenly, to a night about a year after his mother died, when he found his father sitting on the back porch in an eerily similar position. 

“Coop?”  Kurt calls out cautiously.  He doesn’t want to startle him.  “Everything ok?”

Cooper lifts his head and Kurt almost gasps.  His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy from crying, and his face is a tear-streaked, blotchy mess.  “Hey, Kurt,” Cooper says as he rakes a hand through his disheveled hair.  He tries to smile, but it comes out a grimace, and Kurt watches as fresh tears fall.  He’s never seen Cooper cry before, not in person - not for anything but a role.  Even from a distance, Kurt can see that Cooper’s normally bright blue eyes have gone a dull, pained grey.

Kurt drops his bag and coat on the floor and rushes to Cooper’s side.  He kneels down on the floor next to him and places a careful hand on his knee.  He’s relieved when Cooper doesn’t pull away from the touch. 

“I am so, so stupid, Kurt.  So stupid.”

Kurt’s heart breaks at the hurt and embarrassment evident in Cooper’s thick, choked voice.  He doesn’t even need to ask what Cooper is talking about - he knows. 

“You are  _not_  stupid,” Kurt says earnestly, and he slides his arms around Cooper’s shoulders and pulls him into a hug.  He still can’t believe that the Page 6 article is true, even though it  _is_.  He’d thought Cooper was happy with Nina - that they were completely smitten with each other.  He thought that they really had something going, given the way Cooper talked about her endlessly and took her to every appearance and event he attended over the last few months.  Kurt was sure she’d be moving into Cooper’s LA home in no time at all.

“I just - I thought that she - I haven’t done  _this_ before with anyone.  Never.  And it’s all a fucking lie.”  Cooper’s words are muffled against Kurt’s neck, but he can hear the pain and the anger in his voice.  Kurt knows that the  _this_  is a relationship.  Cooper has had girlfriends before, but they’ve all been short-term, casual flings.  Kurt has come to understand that Cooper has a hard time letting anyone who isn’t family close to him.

“I’m sorry I just showed up like this.  I didn’t know where else to go.”  Cooper’s tears are hot on Kurt’s skin and Kurt realizes that his home - his and Blaine’s - is the place where Cooper feels the safest.  It’s where he comes to escape from everything, if only for a little while.  If he and Blaine ever buy a house, Kurt is going to be sure there’s a spare bedroom just for Cooper.

“Shh, of course.  Of course you’re welcome here.  Anytime.  You  _know_  that.  Come on,” Kurt rises to his feet and hauls Cooper up onto the couch.  Cooper collapses on the cushions with a bone-weary sigh and immediately pulls a pillow to his chest, curling himself tight around it.  He looks so hurt, so broken, and Kurt doesn’t know how to fix it.  Kurt doesn’t understand how it’s always the best kind of people who get hurt the worst.

He wants to call Carrie and tell her to have Nina blacklisted all across New York, because Carrie can do that, and damnit, she owes Kurt a favor for that week he came in early and stayed late because one of the editors fucked up and that month’s issue was in serious jeopardy.  He wants to find Nina’s phone number in Cooper’s contacts and bitch her out himself.  He wants to call up every casting agent, producer, and underling in LA and New York and tell them just what a piece of work Nina is and convince them to never hire her for anything ever again - not even a Go Daddy.com commercial.  He wants to cause her a thousand fold of the hurt she’s caused Cooper.

“Don’t,” Cooper says softly, and it pulls Kurt out of his black-stained reverie.

“What?” Kurt looks down to find Cooper staring up at him with shattered, bloodshot eyes.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking about doing.  I can see it on your face.  Just – just don’t, ok?”  Cooper closes his eyes and pulls the pillow tighter to his chest.  “She’s not worth it.”

The front door opens before Kurt can protest that yes, it’s completely worth it to destroy her career the way she’s just destroyed Cooper’s confidence and self-worth.  Kurt hears Blaine’s familiar footsteps and the rustling of a jacket coming off.

“Hey, Kurt, how do tacos sound for dinner?  Because I passed by this food truck and the smell was just - Coop?”  Blaine stops and Kurt sees Blaine’s expression shift quickly from hunger to confusion and worry.

Cooper waves weakly from the couch.  “Hey, B.”

“Oh my god, that shit was true?”  Blaine rushes across the living room and sits down on the couch.  He pulls Cooper’s head onto his lap and brushes Cooper’s hair back from his forehead.  Kurt’s heart constricts painfully at the simple, natural gesture of comfort and affection.

“Can we not talk about this right now?  I just can’t, ok?  Not tonight.”

“Tell us what you need,” Blaine tucks a lock of Cooper’s messy hair behind his ear.

“I just need my family right now.”  Cooper mutters softly, as if it pains him to admit it.  “Can I just - can I stay here tonight?  I know it’s a lot to ask, but-”

“You can stay as long as you need,” Kurt cuts in, and Blaine shoots him a grateful look.  He is still carding his fingers through Cooper’s hair, and Kurt has to wonder if the gesture is unconscious or not.  Kurt smiles back as reassuringly as he can.  It’s absolutely true.  Cooper has crashed at their place a hundred times before, and he’s never asked if it’s ok.  It hits Kurt like a brick that Cooper is seriously wounded - to his very core - if he feels like he needs to ask them for permission.

“Thank you.”

“Just, stay there.  I’ll be right back.”

Blaine cocks his head curiously at him, but Kurt just grins before slipping out of the living room and heading into their bedroom.  He changes into a pair of pajama pants and Blaine’s ratty old NYU shirt, and then grabs another pair of pajama pants, a pair of Blaine’s sweatpants that are too long in the leg for him, and two worn, comfortable t-shirts.  He takes a couple of warm blankets from the hall closet and carries his armload back into the living room.

“Here,” he dumps the blankets and clothes onto the couch.  “Get changed.”  Kurt doesn’t wait for a response before he rushes off to the kitchen for the gallon of Rocky Road ice cream tucked into the back of the freezer, three spoons, and three mugs of hastily made hot cocoa.  He can’t make it as well as Blaine can, but it’ll do in an emergency situation such as this.

When he gets back to the living room with a tray loaded up with ice cream and hot cocoa, the menu screen for  _Dirty Dancing_  is queued up on the TV and Blaine and Cooper are snuggled together on the couch in their pajamas with the thick, cozy blankets draped around them.  Cooper still looks hopelessly broken, but he perks up a little at the sight of the ice cream.  Kurt sets everything down on the coffee table before climbing onto the couch on Cooper’s other side.  He settles in nice and close and he feels Cooper press back against him gratefully.  Sometimes the simplest and best thing to do is to just be there for someone else.

Kurt doesn’t know if this will help anything at all, but it certainly can’t hurt. 

***

Kurt wakes up too hot and he can’t move his arms or legs.  He twists free of the tangle of blankets and pushes himself upright from where he’d been draped over something solid and warm.  The end of  _My Fair Lady_  is playing on the TV, with the volume way down low, but Kurt doesn’t remember the movie even starting.  The last thing he remembers watching is  _An Affair to Remember_.  He has no idea what time it is, only that he’d gone out at 10:30pm to get more ice cream and cookies from the store.  There are three mugs and an empty tub of ice cream on the coffee table, and his right hand is numb from being trapped between his body and the couch cushions.

He rubs his gritty eyes and blinks blearily down the length of the couch.  Blaine and Cooper are still asleep, and Cooper is somehow curled around Blaine’s hips with his head resting against Blaine’s belly as if it’s a pillow.  Kurt’s heart constricts at the sight.  There is a photo that Blaine keeps on one of the bookshelves - it’s of him and his brother when they were younger.  Blaine is just a toddler, a tiny thing with a head of riotous curls and chubby cheeks, and he’s asleep on top of an adolescent Cooper who is sporting a bad 90s haircut.  In the photo, Blaine’s head is pillowed on Cooper’s belly just the way Cooper’s is right then.  Kurt can only imagine how often the only comfort and happiness Blaine and Cooper found during their childhood years were in each other.

Kurt feels his throat tighten and tears spring to his eyes, but he’s not sad at all.  This, this right here is what family is all about - support and closeness and love.  Family is about being there for one another - no matter what - even, and perhaps most especially, when someone has made a mistake.  Kurt finds the remote and turns the TV off before wrapping the blanket back around himself and snuggling down into the couch.  He’s pretty sure those are Blaine’s legs he’s leaning against.

There’s not a lot of room on the couch with three full-grown men, but there’s enough.  Kurt closes his eyes and lets the warmth and safety of  _family_ lull him back to sleep.  He’ll call in “sick” to work tomorrow.  Carrie will understand - he’s right where he’s needed the most.


End file.
